Previous Employment
by Apapazukamori
Summary: Beware of gifts sent by American doctors who play with Cheri action figures. Jose found something at the video store and decided to send it to Murata, for old time's sake.


**Previous Employment**

The pair of students walked through the busy shopping center, under the glow of thousands of tiny, glittering lights left over from the Christmas season. The weather was typically chilly, though Yuuri refused to button his coat all the way. His companion, however, not only had his coat buttoned as far as it would go, he had added a scarf and knit cap to help block out the wind.

"Can you still breathe, under there?"

"Mmmff mmrf mrf."

Yuuri rolled his eyes and shook his head, looking out at the sea of shoppers snapping up last-minute New Years preparations and post-Christmas sales. Everyone looked happy, smiling and laughing as they made their ways in and out of shops or stopping at the arcade. "I heard there's a new baseball video game at the Sega arcade..." he tried and failed to keep the hope out of his voice, but they passed by anyway.

"Mrfrfrfmrfmr--WAH! Cold, Shibuya!" Murata scrambled to pull the scarf back up, covering his nose and mouth and fogging his glasses with every breath.

"And Wolfram calls _me_ a wimp."

With a familiar, put-upon sigh, Murata tugged the scarf until it fell to his chin. "Not everyone in the world takes pleasure in courting pneumonia like you do," the youth replied as he led Yuuri around the corner, off onto one side street and then another. Yuuri glanced around, half-remembering the area; he'd been to Murata's house only once or twice since they'd met, so he wasn't always sure of the route. Although, it was entirely possible that Murata intentionally kept the visits rare. If Yuuri knew the boy's address, he'd be more likely to conduct unannounced visits.

They climbed the stairs to the apartment complex's third level, Murata's keys jingling in his hand for the last flight. "My parents are on a business trip," he explained as he unlocked the front door and showed Yuuri into the darkened apartment. "We'll have to fend for ourselves, I'm afraid."

Yuuri laughed, understanding why Murata had insisted on going out to dinner before heading over to his place. "No proble--I think I stepped on something."

The foyer light flipped on and the boys stared down at a large mailing envelope sitting just below the mail slot. "Ah, must be for Dad," Murata mused as he slipped his shoes off.

Yuuri picked it up and turned it over. "Nope, it's for you!" The brown paper was thick and felt padded, and something rattled just a little inside.

"Let me see?" Murata held out his hand for the package and looked at the mailing label. "It's from Doctor Rodriguez." Yuuri recognized the name and grinned, remembering the tall African-American doctor that he'd met when they'd gone to visit Bob. "Wonder what he's sending me..."

They padded into the apartment as Murata ripped the envelope open and rummaged inside. Yuuri grabbed a pair of glasses from over the sink and poured them some milk. Despite the infrequent visits, Murata had insisted Yuuri behave as if he was at his own home, so he had wound up knowing where everything was. "Candy, comic books--oh I've been wondering about that issue..." Murata muttered as he pulled things out of the envelope. "Phone card--that's nice, letter... oh he _didn't_."

Yuuri looked up, tilting his head to the side. "Huh?"

Murata pulled a DVD out of the envelope with a sigh and set it down on the table. Yuuri saw the cover and nearly choked on his milk. "Wha-wha-WHAT?!" The cover of the box was plastered with pictures of a scantily clad young woman with long legs and even longer black hair. Most of the poses were just barely short of tasteless. Yuuri felt a nosebleed threatening to start.

"The doctor has a weird sense of humor." Rubbing at his forehead, Murata opened up the letter and scanned it. "Ah, here we go... 'Ken, I found this in the bargain section--' bargain section, tch," Murata grumbled and then continued to read. "Ah.. 'I sent it for memory's sake'."

Yuuri tore his gaze away from the DVD to his friend, and wondered why Murata was not as scandalized as he was. It looked like something out of one of his older brother's dating sims. "M..murata," he stammered. "What memories?" His eyes widened as a horrible thought occurred to him: is this what doctors showed their patients in America?! Was it some kind of blood-pressure examination? Or reflexes, like when they hit your knee with that little hammer? He was starting to feel a little dizzy. Or sick. Or maybe both.

Murata blinked at him. "I never told you?" he asked, picking up the video and turning it over to read the back. "I made this in my past life."

"WHAT?!"

Murata looked half-amused, half-pained. "Yeah, this was Christine's job. She was kind of wild."

_Wild, he says..._ Yuuri tried to imagine Murata as a woman, and then as a woman who made those kinds of movies, and then all he could think of was the woman on the box's body with Murata's face on it...

Then his brain overloaded and decided it would be better to just pass out.

o-o-o-o-o

"I can't believe you made a porn video."

Murata sniffed. "I didn't. Christine did." He popped a handful of popcorn in his mouth and glanced at the sex unfolding on the screen. "Several, in fact. She was pretty popular."

Yuuri peeked at the television through his fingers and made a strangled noise when the woman -- Christine, or whatever her character's name was -- started to unbutton her shirt. Very. Slowly. "How can you watch this?!"

His friend raised an eloquent eyebrow. "You okay, Shibuya?" Even Yuuri could tell he was trying not to smile. And getting close to utter failure. "Shall I turn this off?"

"I'm fine!" If Murata could watch this, dammit, so could he. "But I can't believe you're not weirded out by it."

"Well, like I said before, it's not me." Murata tossed a popcorn kernel up and caught it in his mouth. "And anyway, girls? Meh." He made a so-so gesture with his hand before tossing up more popcorn.

Yuuri's eyes widened to the size of dinner plates and he nearly fell off the couch. "You don't like girls?" he meant to ask, but what came out was: "Youyouyouyoudon'tImeanyoudon'tyou--" here, he inserted several hand gestures hopefully conveying the female form "--likethemgirlsyoudon'tyouGAY?!"

Thankfully, Murata had full gotten marks in "babbling idiot". "Yes, Shibuya, you are correct. I don't like girls."

The next step was to flail pointedly at the television. Another woman had joined the party. "Then... how... what... you..." he stopped flailing and covered his face when Murata thew an empty soda can at him.

"Christine liked everyone." He paused. "She kind of had to, it was her job." He shrugged. "But I'm not her."

Yuuri flicked a piece of popcorn at Murata. "How come you flirt with all the maids?" he asked, sort of wondering why he felt the need to interrogate his friend like this, but it was _necessary_!

The once-again raised eyebrow made him think Murata was starting to wonder the same thing. "I flirt with the stablehands, too, you know."

Another strangled noise and Yuuri smacked his forehead. He did sort of recall noticing that... the guys at the stables always looked so pleased when Murata accompanied Yuuri's party. He'd thought it was because of Yozak. But Yozak didn't always travel with them, just showed up out of nowhere later on. But Yozak and Murata _were_ sort of close...

Oh, for goodness' sake. The last thing he needed to be doing was pairing his friend off with one of his retainers. Especially not the male ones.

Yuuri eyed Murata with a slight wariness. "Hey..." he said hesitantly, suddenly resisting the urge to move closer to the far end of the couch. "You don't like me... that way, do you?"

He wasn't sure he'd ever seen that much anger in Murata's expression before. Yuuri did scoot over with a little "meep" noise. But his friend just let out a huge sigh and rubbed his forehead for a moment, then looked at him with a sort of look he remembered his mother giving him when he was younger and had asked why she didn't have "parts" like everyone in the rest of the family. Even Yuuri had to admit he had been sort of stupid as a kid.

"Shibuya..." Murata began, and Yuuri snapped back to attention. "For future reference, that's kind of rude to assume. You're not attracted to every woman you see, are you?"

Yuuri almost replied that of course he was, he was a teenager. But he didn't feel that way about half the girls in his class, or Ulrike back in Shin Makoku -- and thank heaven for that, the Shibuya family already had its resident weirdo in his older brother. And in his mother. Well, at least his father was sane. "Um, no." Yuuri looked back at Murata and started to feel sort of guilty. "Sorry about that."

The expression on Murata's face softened. "Though, I think maybe you're the exception, Shibuya." A loud moan from the television made him glance over and then shrug. "Really, everyone likes you."

"What, everyone, 'everyone'?"

His friend laughed. "You didn't notice?"

"Hell no!" Yuuri attempted to envision his next trip to Shin Makoku with this realization and his skin crawled.

"Well, that's proably part of the reason why."

Yuuri looked at him through narrowed eyes. "Everyone likes me because they think I'm stupid?"

Murata turned his head just slightly and the light caught his glasses. "I'm not going to begin to speculate on that," he said cryptically. Yuuri's skin stepped up its escape attempt. Murata must have seen something in his face, because he cracked up, holding his sides while he laughed. "Now, don't worry!" he said as he sat back up straight. "I don't think anyone's going to jump you in a hallway somewhere-- no one has, have they?"

"No!!"

"Oh. Well good." Murata smiled at him. "Look, I won't lie and say I'm kidding and trying to freak you out. You're really, really special, Shibuya. Everyone can see that. And some people have dealt with their feelings, some haven't. Some of them don't know they even have them."

Yuuri ducked his head, feeling his face heat up. "But... what do I do about it?"

"Nothing."

Not the answer he expected. "Eh?"

Again with that smile that sort of kind of reminded him of Conrad. "Really, you don't have to do anything. I doubt anyone would want you to, anyway."

Yuuri tried to imagine pretending to return someone's feelings when he didn't share them and shook his head. Rejecting people really wasn't his cup of tea, either. "So... unless it's a problem, I should just let it go?"

"Precisely."

"Huh. 'Kay."

They somehow managed to finish watching the movie, which became steadily less arousing with every "behind-the-scenes" story Murata told. In the end, it was more funny than anything else. Though if Doctor Roderiguez wanted to send Murata any more old "memories", Yuuri would make sure he was nowhere around to see them. They played a soccer video game for a while, until Yuuri became stricken with a serious case of the obnoxiously loud yawn.

Murata powered off the game console and stretched his hands high above his head. "Guest futon's set out for you," he said as he stood up.

"Thanks." Yuuri looked at him for a minute, then blurted out a question that had been nagging at him for hours. "Hey, Murata..."

"Hm?"

"About what you said before... which type are you?"

Murata stood very, very still, black bangs covering his eyes. Then slowly, he leaned down and kissed Yuuri's cheek. For a moment after he pulled back, Yuuri had trouble remembering to breathe. Murata looked down at him with a wistful sort of smile, and then turned toward his bedroom.

"Murata...?"

"Yeah, Shibuya?"

"Is it a problem?"

"Nope."

Looking down at the floor, Yuuri couldn't help but smile. Maybe this being loved by everybody thing wasn't so bad. "Okay."

He heard Murata's laugh down the hall. "Goodnight, Shibuya."

"Night." 


End file.
